The art of discourse

Normally, I do not get worked up about the waste of a resource by Mobilians. Many people have been disadvantaged by wasting away their opportunities to better themselves. They do not take advantage of the hand up, preferring the hand out.

Elected officials are resources. Election of anyone to office is a platform to let everyone see if we support a progressive or regressive government to steer the majority of issues considered important by our community.

If you don’t vote, don’t squawk about how things are. If you do vote and candidates on your slate are not victorious, find like-minded people on any issues and peacefully challenge the thinking on those issues. Try to change the thinking but not attack the person.

As a community we got in our own way by wasting the resources in a recent town hall meeting by Congressman Bradley Byrne, who had come home to gauge the thoughts of the community before major votes on issues at the national level. People in the community were not progressive enough to listen to his report back on the national agenda that affects changes in our daily lives. He would have listened to comments on the issues to form an opinion on how the majority wanted him to vote and our concerns.

Instead of being able to do his job, which we pay him for, he was treated to people having diverse agendas of their own and way out of line. How can you waste valuable time and a valuable resource? Disrupting a town hall meeting is a way to miss out on a national vote on health care and several other issues on the national agenda.

I hope our community is educated enough to know we wasted a resource. Our voice was disrupted. Whether for or against the health care issues — in-fighting with individual problems cause the issues at hand to lack attention by the community. We wasted a resource again. Come on Mobile, get it together!